🚗 Are Dealer-Quoted Monthly Payments the Next FTC Compliance Risk?
🚙 The FTC already sent warning letters to 97 dealerships in March, with a group potentially on the hook for close to $80 million in fines. Now there's a new gap on the radar, and this one's built into how nearly every store quotes a payment.
🚗 Toyota and Honda May Get Stuck With the Bill for Trump's Canada Tariffs
🚙 Toyota exports the RAV4 from Canada, Honda the CR-V, both among America's best-selling SUVs. Toyota already absorbed $8.8 billion in tariff costs last year and is doubling down on U.S. production instead. Honda says it may not build its planned eighth North American plant at all without a USMCA extension.
🚗 Stellantis Dealers Say the Carvana Strategy Is Missing the Most Important Part
🚙 One dealer told Automotive News that a sales manager posing as a customer called a Carvana Stellantis store about a check engine light and was told to just take it to an independent mechanic. "That is just not what our network needs," the dealer said. "You do that, you'll sell someone one car, and you'll never sell them a car again."
🚙 A franchise dealer wants to “skip the salesperson,” Walmart turns charging into a retail advantage, and Spirit’s internal data hits bankruptcy court.
🚙 Amazon and Walmart have spent years testing drone delivery without fully cracking consumer logistics at scale. Jack Demmer found the use case those companies never had: a fixed, short-range need between a dealership's own buildings.
🚗 Polestar Says It Was Blindsided. Dealers Say That's Not the Whole Story.
🚙 Polestar is telling U.S. dealers it never saw the ban coming. One of those dealers is suing for $25 million, arguing the company saw it coming from a mile away and used the government as a convenient exit. Both accounts can't be fully true.
🚗 Trump Just Threatened to Double Canada's Auto Tariff to 50%
🚙 The deal that collapsed Friday would have cut Canadian auto tariffs from 25% to 15%. USTR Jamieson Greer called the fallout a "tempest in a teapot," and there's real precedent for skepticism: Trump made a similar 50% tariff threat against Canadian-made aircraft in January that never materialized.
🚙 Used EV sales climbed more than 10% year over year in July, and for the first time in six months, buyers shopping for a used EV actually had more to choose from than buyers shopping used gas vehicles.
🚙 Stanton told a story about a senator in Wyoming who cut him off mid-thank-you to hear directly from the dealers who actually hire and generate revenue in his state. It's the same logic behind NADA's September Washington Conference: state associations set the meetings, NADA supplies the talking points, and dealers bring the thing lawmakers actually showed up to hear.
🚗 Group 1 Is Betting on One Name. Does Anyone Know What It Stands For?
🚙 Group 1 Automotive is consolidating dozens of legacy dealership names under one brand, with more than 60 stores already rebranded, representing over half its annual U.S. sales volume. The company plans to acquire 10 Hennessy dealerships in metro Atlanta, growing its footprint there from 3 stores to 15.
🚗 What Does an Automaker Do When the Government Shows It the Door?
🚙 If your franchise brand has foreign ownership ties under any regulatory scrutiny, this case is worth watching. It's the first real test of whether "the government made us do it" holds up as a clean exit.
🚙 This isn't really an EV story, it's a focus story. While competitors spread efforts across multiple models trying to cover every price point, Tesla let one vehicle become the unmistakable answer to "what EV should I buy."
🚙 Don is just as willing to challenge the industry he represents. He shares the shocking story of a dealership mistake that ended with a customer spending a night in jail, reflects on the hard-driving retail mentality he once embraced himself, and argues that automotive has to eradicate the behaviors that keep reinforcing its worst reputation.
🚙 The franchise system exists because manufacturers couldn't afford national retail networks themselves; independent owners took on that risk, which is why franchise protection isn't unique to cars, it's true of Subway and 1-800-Flowers too. Dealerships are often among the highest local taxpayers in their metro areas.
🚙 The question was whether AI creates a permanent step up from the historical 1.5%-2.5% profit range, or whether the industry just drifts back toward the mean like always.
🚙 That grade drop is the real headline here, and it's not about product quality. It's about a brand whose trucks now sit near six figures pricing out the exact customer who used to be Ford's on-ramp into the family.
🚗 The EV Lease Reality Check Is Walking Onto Your Floor Today
🚙 Plenty of these customers genuinely loved their EV, they just got priced out of staying in one. A plug-in hybrid is the natural landing spot for someone who liked having a plug but can't stomach the new payment.
🚗 Anything Carvana Can Do, Dealers Can Do (Better)
🚙 Car Dealership Guy spoke with 40 sources about Carvana's Stellantis stores, and dealers pointed to national pricing, no document fees, and a sales model that promotes itself as an alternative to traditional dealerships. Service is another flashpoint, with some nearby dealers absorbing more warranty and recall work from Carvana customers.
🚗 How Lithia Posted a Record Quarter While Margins Fell 11%
🚙 Think of a customer's ownership experience like a sponsored race car covered in logos. Insurance, finance, protection products, service, every one is a sticker, and every sticker is a company that gets a recurring touchpoint and a slice of that customer's lifetime value. The more of those your store owns instead of handing off to an outside lender or insurer, the more of that value stays with you.
🚙 The 2027 Cadillac Lyriq configurator still lists Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard, three years after GM said it would phase both out to push customers onto its own platform. The subscription revenue and driver data GM wanted only exist if a customer chooses the vehicle first, and CarPlay turned out to be non-negotiable for exactly the buyers GM needed.
